Readers' Choice

What's in a name? Well, not always what you might think. To the uninitiated, Asian Café Express might seem like a nondescript fast-food joint serving a mishmash of Asian food, but in truth, this unassuming eatery is pure Hong Kong, baby. Like so many good Chinese restaurants, Asian Café Express is efficient and no-frills, with specials written in Chinese and English tacked to pastel pink walls. Photos of special dishes are helpful, too, since the menu itself sprawls on and on.

Like noodles? This place has dozens of choices, from black mushroom chow fun and beef tripe lo mein to a slew of different soups. Stir-fry dishes round up a mind-boggling assortment of ingredients, such as bean sprouts and shredded pork, or scrambled egg with shrimp. You can get whole fish prepared several different ways, and there are so many hot-pot concoctions that it would take weeks of dedicated eating just to try them all. But hey, it's fun to try — nothing costs more than $7.99, so why not be adventurous?

Who says kids get to have all the fun? The best merry-go-round in Phoenix just happens to be a grown-up playground, a place where you can eat an upscale dinner while watching the world go by. It's the Compass Restaurant, a revolving eatery at the top of downtown's Hyatt Regency. There are 360-degree views to go along with executive chef Troy Knapp's Southwestern-tinged contemporary menu. Highlights include grilled bison and garden gazpacho with cornbread croutons; smoked salmon "enchiladas" with Vidalia crema, savory lemon curd, and micro basil; and baked chilaquiles with grilled nopales, roasted peppers, and smoked tomato butter. We promise the Compass spins so slowly that you won't experience vertigo. Go crazy with the award-winning wine list, however, and all bets are off.

Harold's Cave Creek Corral has long billed itself as "the original Wild West Saloon and Restaurant," but back in the day, the proprietors took the roaring good time in a whole different direction.

Harold and Ruth Gavagan, who'd bought Cave Creek Corral in 1950 and added "Harold's" to the name, held daily a cowboy show in front of the restaurant for years, but decided to switch things up when a guy named Carl Mulhauser started working for the restaurant in the late '60s. Turns out, Mulhauser was a former circus lion tamer with connections to obtain some animals.

The Gavagans' daughter, Janet, was a teenager at the time and recalls her late parents' decision to let Mulhauser buy two or three lions and do a circus-style performance every afternoon. The animals lived in a cage right behind the restaurant.

"Prior to that, there was no thought of having lions or tigers, but it was a way to stand out from the other steakhouses in the Valley at the time," she says. "My dad was very inventive when it came to hiring people."

Mulhauser took care of the animals and did the shows for a couple of years, but when he moved on, so did the lions. A few years later, in the mid-'70s, he came back, this time performing with tigers. It was all over by the end of the decade, and nobody's quite sure whether the lions and tigers ended up in a zoo or a flashy Las Vegas show. But for some locals, it made a lasting impression.

Michael Seitts, a Scottsdale native who's spent plenty of time at Harold's over the years, says he's still amazed that anybody pulled it off.

A carnival ain't a carnival unless your dining options include some manner of foodstuff that's been placed on a stick. In fact, on our last visit to the midway, our repast consisted of individually skewered deep-fried Twinkies, tasty egg rolls, and the undisputed king of impaled edibles, the corn dog. And outside the carnival circuit, the best place we've found this deep-fried delight of a flavorful frank covered in cornmeal is at the Gilbert location of Al's Chicago Style. We've forgone the kind of middling corn dogs available at places like Sonic or am/pm in favor of a juicy, all-beef Chicago-style wiener covered in crispy and delicious batter that just melts in our mouth. If you're feeling daring, try adding a few helpings of jalapeño pepper hot sauce or Tabasco onto your dog instead of the usual ketchup and mustard, but keep a cool drink handy.

Besides corn dogs, funnel cakes, or any other foodstuff that's been cooked in an unhealthful amount of grease or lard, a longtime staple of local carnivals, fairs, or street festivals has been Indian fry bread. And much to our doctor's chagrin, we've eaten more than our fair share of this doughy, deep-fried Native American specialty, and it's usually been covered with such toppings as honey and powdered sugar or sumptuous meats and chilies. So whenever we've got a hankering for this debaucherous deliciousness (and a fair or carnival isn't readily available), we head for the Fry Bread House, where owner Cecelia Miller has been clogging our arteries for more than 15 years. Miller and company offer a variety of flavorful fillings atop their chewy and flaky fry bread (which is the size of a LP record), ranging from the standard "Indian taco" (homemade refried beans, lettuce, and cheese) to chorizo, chilies, and ground beef. We've noshed there twice this week alone, but we swear, doc, we'll atone for it with a few extra rounds of cardio this week at the gym. Promise.

You won't find any wacky mirrors in this funhouse, although House of Tricks does have a way of skewing one's perspective — in a good way. Once you set foot into the outdoor patio, sheltered by huge leafy trees and decked out with tiny white lights, all feels right with the world. Your mood is bound to improve even more once you find something on the interesting wine list. Inside, the charm of this 1920s cottage starts to work its magic on you, and expert service only heightens the feeling that life is grand, indeed. As for the New American menu — well, that will make you smile, too. Options run the gamut from black tea-spiced ahi tuna to pistachio-crusted rack of lamb to smoked chile-glazed hanger steak. Nope, House of Tricks isn't the typical funhouse. But, hey, it's a restaurant in an old house — and eating here sure is fun.